2008-10-05

catalogs polemic

I started writing my contribution to Classification and Discovery in Large Astronomical Surveys; I am writing about a generative model of every astronomical image ever taken. But right now the part I am most interested in is the part about catalogs being—explicitly—bayesian models of the imaging on which they are based. If the community adopted this point of view, it would have a number of advantages, in the documentation, usability, communication, interoperability, construction, and analysis of astronomical catalogs. I am trying to make this argument very clear for the proceedings.